RETINA-LIKE VISUAL SENSOR FOR FAST TRACKING AND NAVIGATION ROBOTS

This paper describes the development of an anthropomorphic visual sens or which generates a spatially variant resolution image by using a ret ina-like structure. This sensor consists of a dove prism for image rot ation and two linear CCD sensors with 512 pixel/line resolution and ho lds approximately 45 kbytes of image data. The retina-like sensor has variable resolution with increasing density towards the center of the visual field and yields a polar-coordinate image directly. The motion analysis of the object in the scene from the optical flow is considera bly simplified if the velocity is represented in polar coordinates, co mpared to the case when the image is represented in cartesian coordina tes. A calibration procedure for the proposed retina-like sensor is al so presented with experimental data to verify the validity of the syst em. Development of this sensor holds promise in applications to high-s peed tracking systems, such as the eyes of navigation robots, because it has data reduction and polar mapping characteristics.